The Facebook app takes up 200MB. Why would it use so much space when it gets data (mostly) from the web?
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Facebook app size - why 200MB?
- Thread starter aidenh37
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In *theory*, iOS should clean out app caches automatically when space becomes constrained.
Of course, theory doesn't always match reality, but if your device becomes so full that those 200MB could be a problem, it SHOULD be cleaned out.
It's usually not good to have your device that full, though. You're going to run into problems!
As mentioned before, the app itself is smaller than that, the rest of it is cached data essentially.
Mine is constantly around 600+ MB now. I have tried numerous cache cleaner apps but it seems Facebook cache isn't cleaned. It's not that I don't have any more space left but it's more the thing of cache cleaning option that is missing in such an app or in iOS to many do that at any point in time when the user prefers to do it per app or for all.
I did found an alternative Facebook app (Friendly) which also has the nice classic feature to see the latest articles first instead of the most popular ones. The downside is that it has an add but you can buy that away with in-app purchase (ones). I can't get use to the UI of that one though. Last option is visiting mobile website via browser.
I did found an alternative Facebook app (Friendly) which also has the nice classic feature to see the latest articles first instead of the most popular ones. The downside is that it has an add but you can buy that away with in-app purchase (ones). I can't get use to the UI of that one though. Last option is visiting mobile website via browser.
Well, deleting and reinstalling the Facebook app seems to do the trick usually when it comes to removing the cached data.
400 MB of Main app download size just HTML based app which shows random people and random videos.
Even Facebook Messenger is approaching 300 MB which is ridiculous for instant messaging app.
Every 10 days, we get 200 MB download update for FB and 150 MB for FB messenger.
Even Facebook Messenger is approaching 300 MB which is ridiculous for instant messaging app.
Every 10 days, we get 200 MB download update for FB and 150 MB for FB messenger.
It seems not. I think Apple should definitely do something about this cache 'problem' because the current way of cleaning cache by either:
* current way of iOS itself to clean cache
* have an option in certain apps (depends on the developer if they build it in their app) to clear cache of that app
* delete an an app and re-install it to clear the cache (not a great way to do it) e.g. Facebook app
See also this iOS11 concept video from Jacek Zięba and at 1.31minute in the video you see his was of clearing cache.
and users complain when things take a second or two to load. It is a double edged sword. Caching allows you to also view things while you are offline giving you some functionality while internet isn't available.
But I guess like 9/10 times most people are connect to the internet and for an app such as Facebook you just want to simply see the latest posts and there shouldn't be a need to cache photos from weeks ago that you don't want to see anymore.
People would still complain about the application being slow. Besides, iOS takes care of flushing the cache when it needs room. My question is why are people worried about this? If you have room on your device, I wouldn't worry about what the app uses. If you don't have room on your device, the app isn't going to have room to cache. The original question is moot... Just use the app and let the basckside figure out what it needs to do.
As for internet, it sucks in my area of Germany. So, having the ability to cache a little is kind of nice. I can make a post and then when the phone finally connects, it will post it up.
They could of course optimize the images and compress all assets in the app but it would require cpu/memory usage to open each time and decompress the assets.
Give the app to some demoscene coder from the Amiga era or todays 64k compos and we would have the facebook app below 2 MB next week. Would end up with a "Now loading.." bar for two minutes each launch but it would be small!
My iPad says FB is 225 MB and an additional 108 MB documents and data.
Its a few hundred megabytes. On a device with multipel gigabytes! No problem
Give the app to some demoscene coder from the Amiga era or todays 64k compos and we would have the facebook app below 2 MB next week. Would end up with a "Now loading.." bar for two minutes each launch but it would be small!
My iPad says FB is 225 MB and an additional 108 MB documents and data.
Its a few hundred megabytes. On a device with multipel gigabytes! No problem
But at least give the user to option to clear the cache if they want to. I know for one app it's only a few hundred MBs but it adds up pretty quickly if you have that for a list of apps for which you don't want to have this cache feature or at least make it a maximum as some offline music apps offer.
I love to listen to music offline (or even download news offline with e.g. Newsify) to save data on my 3G data package of 1GB a month.
But for apps such as Facebook I don't see the need for it to cache. I have background app refresh turned off and only want to see the latest new posts and as soon as I close the app chances are slim that I ever want to see those 'old' posts again so why cache those? Let is up to the user to decide.
I know then it's no problem if this only occurs with one app but it adds up when you have multiple apps which have this. I use quite a lot of apps so then it would get into the GBs of data that you can't use for e.g. new apps, offline music or photos/videos that you want to store locally.
I think you are missing the point. If I remember correctly, iOS will flush the cache if you want to download music, there is no need for the user to do any of this thus no need for a flush cache option. The OS will/can take care this as you use your phone. Just becasue you don't see a reson for caching, doesn't mean that others (like me) don't use it.